It's been a busy 2014 for GW Micro, makers of the Window-Eyes screen reader. First, on January 14th, it announced a groundbreaking partnership with Microsoft to provide a free, full-feature version of its Window-Eyes screen reader to anyone who owns a licensed copy of Office 2010, 2013, or has a subscription to Office 365. You can learn more at www.WindowEyesforOffice.com. Next, on April 2nd, it announced a new service, Accessibility Solutions—a fee-based service available to persons and organizations interested in making their websites, documents or software accessible and compliant with Section 508 standards, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), or the internationally recognized Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0.
Finally, on May 1st, GW Micro and Ai Squared, makers of the ZoomText screen magnifier and text-to-speech software package, announced the two companies had merged. The name GW Micro will be retired, and going forward, all products and services are being produced and marketed under the AI Squared brand name.
For members of the print-impaired community, the word "change" is all-too-often synonymous with a reshuffling of corporate priorities, the most worrisome of which is the company's dedication to creating, maintaining, and upgrading the accessibility of their various products and services. These concerns grow even larger when the product in question is a screen access product—especially if it's a screen reader or magnifier you rely on to stay connected to the world, attend school, or perform your job. This is why AccessWorld invited representatives of both companies to speak with us about the merger and what it means to their customers and employees, as well as the combined company's commitment to continue serving the sight-impaired community with ongoing product enhancements and technical support.
The Merger
According to David Wu, President and CEO of AI Squared, "Even though we're merging, there will still be a great deal of autonomy between the divisions." The new AI Squared will keep the same offices and employees in Manchester Center, Vermont and Fort Wayne, Indiana. There are no plans to relocate the GW offices, and there were no layoffs or staff reductions.
According to Dan Weirich, Vice-President of the newly-combined company, "Technical support options will also not be affected. The same support personnel who assist our customers now will continue to work with them."
Going forward, GW Micro products and services will be branded with the AI Squared name. Instead of GW Micro Window-Eyes, for example, it will now be redubbed AI Squared Window-Eyes. Adds Wu, "About the only other noticeable difference most users will experience will be when, very soon, we will be combining our web presences into a single site: www.AISquared.com. That work is already in progress."
Why Now?
AI Squared has been creating and marketing screen and text access products since 1987. GW Micro entered the field in 1990. So, why merge now?
"This merger has actually been in the works for quite some time," says Weirich.
"The cooperation between the companies started a long time before the papers were signed," added Wu. "We assigned one of our programmers to work directly with GW Micro on Window-Eyes some months ago to help ensure our products work more seamlessly together. There are also many program elements we had each developed separately that could help the other improve its products once we were in a position to share them."
According to Weirich, "It took us awhile to figure out how things would work and what a merger would mean for both companies. We also had businesses to run, products to develop and ongoing negotiations with other companies, such as our joint venture with Microsoft to distribute Window-Eyes for Office, which we had to keep confidential, even from our potential merger partners at AI Squared.
The Synergies
Successful mergers always create synergies, efficiencies and economies of scale that lead the merged company to be greater than the sum of its parts. According to Wu and Weirich, these synergies are numerous.
Observes Wu, "People don't generally wake up one morning and say, 'Oh my God. I'm blind. I need a screen reader.' The odds are good that sight-impaired individual start out with partial vision loss, and a screen magnifier—ZoomText or ZoomText Mac, we hope—was one of his or her first accessibility purchases. As that individual's vision diminishes, however, he or she needs to transition from a screen magnifier to a magnifier with voice assist, and finally, to a full-featured screen reader such as Window- Eyes. With all three of these elements now under one metaphorical if not actual roof, we can make that transition much smoother, and we can do this both on a program level with shared code and scripting, and also on a support level with combined training and conference booths and presentations."
Wu and Weirich were both rather circumspect about when they would offer a single product package that would combine Window-Eyes and ZoomText. "We don't want to announce any new products until we can say exactly when they will be available," says Wu.
"It's an obvious route to pursue, but for now, we're still finding our way together," added Weirich.
Both Weirich and Wu stated categorically that there were no plans to work with Microsoft on a free ZoomText for Office product similar to their Window-Eyes for Office offering. "Both companies have enjoyed excellent working relationships with Microsoft for many years," says Wu. "Going forward, that relationship can only grow stronger."
With their newly-combined product portfolio, Wu and Weirich predict they will have increased strength in the marketplace, selling to government agencies and other institutions. As for their current dealer networks, "A large majority of North American dealers who carry ZoomText also sell Window-Eyes," says Wu. "So we anticipate few, if any, changes to our current dealer network."
"Our Accessibility Solutions initiative should also dovetail nicely with AI Squared's sitecues," adds Weirich. sitecues is an access technology that makes web properties more accessible by building magnification and reading capabilities directly into a website.
Both AI Squared and GW Micro also sell and support various hardware magnification products, including ZoomText Image Reader, the i-loview hand held digital magnifier, Koba Vision, and the ReadIt Scholar HD. "There isn't an excessive amount of feature overlap in these products," says Weirich. "We're still figuring out what we'll do long term, but our customers can be assured, they will continue to receive full support for all of our current software and our low-vision hardware products."
Going Forward
"With AI Squared firmly behind us, our developers will have even more financial and technical resources to produce Window-Eyes Version 9, and the many versions after that," says Weirich. "Now more than ever, we can say with certainty, Window-Eyes is here to stay."
"AccessWorld readers can feel confident that they will still receive the same excellent products and support from our merged company as they have come to expect from both companies individually," says Wu. "The AI Squared motto used to be ?Making Accessibility Simple'," he says. ""Now that we've merged, a better motto for our company is: "We've Got Accessibility Covered."
Staying in Touch
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